Dissemination of the Soviet and Russian archaeological literature in China

This article presents the forms and stages of the influence from the side of Soviet/Russian archaeology on the development of archaeological science in China. On the basis of data obtained three main phases were distinguished in the process. The first one corresponds to the period of 1950–1977, when Chinese specialists initially became acquainted with Soviet achievements in archaeology and museology. Important part of it was two visits to China (in 1950 and 1959) paid by outstanding Soviet archaeologist S. V. Kiselev. In its turn, this period has two subdivisions as if from the early 1960 s successful scientific contacts suffered from negative influence of politics, i. e. deterioration of bilateral relations. The second stage has begun from 1978, simultaneously with reforms in all spheres of social life in PRC. Within this period scientists have been making purposeful investigations of Russian archaeological materials according to the needs and tasks of Chinese archaeology itself. As representative example we can take the edition of special archaeological volume of the «Great Russian Encyclopedia» which contains dozens of articles about Russian archaeological items (including those of Central Asia). Many specialists (such as Mo Runxian, Wang Dehou, Yao Feng, Lin Shushan et al.) especially std and translate Russian publications on the actual questions of archaeology and ancient history. The third stage has begun in 2002; it is characterized by enlargement in themes and forms of cooperation as well as participation of specialists of two countries in joint scientific projects. Nevertheless, it should be noted that inverse process (translations into Russian and summarizing the works of Chinese archaeologists) up to the date is developing more slowly.